Journalistic Mainstreaming

Journalistic mainstreaming is the concentrated effort by newspapers to include quotes from minority groups in articles that are not specifically about minority issues. While the initiative to broaden people's communities by including voices that might normally go unheard should be something that is considered laudable, you have to question the motivations for the mainstreaming. Some publications, such as the Los Angeles Times started making quotas for their paper, which include that each front page must have at least one minority quote, and that all stories that are not breaking news must also include a minority quote.

Why are the publications doing this? If it's for broadening our community, and making points of views known that might otherwise be overlooked, then that is commendable. However, if it's done just for the sake of political correctness, or worse, an attempt to tap into a market for the sake of drawing in new advertising dollars, then I believe a line has been crossed. Some newspapers policy of requiring a certain amount of minority quotes to be considered for advancement seems to be a classic case of political correctness that is missing the spirit of the issue at hand.

If journalism is about reporting news in an interesting way, then the burden falls upon the journalist. Including quotes from minorities for the sake of having them does not do anything to enhance the story or educate the reader. If we truly want journalism that encompasses minority points of view, shouldn't the concentration instead be on creating newsrooms that more accurately reflect our community? If the majority of journalists are middle class Caucasian men, then the stories that are published will naturally reflect that. Shoehorning in minority quotes will not suddenly make the articles all-encompassing of all viewpoints, that can only be accomplished by creating more diversity in the actual newsrooms that are employed by newspaper publishers.

Surprisingly there are few Youtube clips to be found that deal with journalistic mainstreaming, so I will settle for a Ricky Gervais clip.

The Arnie Effect

The use of muscular men and impossibly thin models to sell products will always be controversial. While those images can be used to influence people, it also means that we as consumers need to be media literate. So while we are bombarded with images of what we should look like, at least to the companies that want to sell us a product, we need to be aware of that very fact, that the images of these beautiful people are there for the sole purpose of making us feel like we need something more, and just maybe it's the product these particular models happen to be selling.

While these images could contribute to eating disorders or steroid abuse, again, I think the main responsibility with that lies with the individual. While everyone wants to look perfect like they do in movies are magazines, by increasing our media literacy, we will realize that these people look that perfect with a lot of help, whether it's steroid abuse or Photoshop, no one looks that good without a lot of help.

Using normal sized models is something I don't have an issue with, although that may also be another sneaky advertising ploy. Instead of automatically rejecting a product because the models they are using are impossibly good looking, instead seeing someone who looks normal may fool me into thinking that I would enjoy whatever product they're using, because they're normal just like me. However, in the grand scheme of things, I find using normal models to be less of an issue than thin models.

In theory I don't have an issue with the use of magazines using Photoshop, after all they're trying to sell a product, and if they feel they need to change the image they're using to do that, that's up to their discretion. Again, I believe the onus falls on us, as consumers, to vote with our dollars and increase our media literacy. If magazines realize they're not selling products due to altered images, then those practices will change.

This clip is from the movie Bigger, Stronger, Faster which is a documentary about steroids, created by a former steroid user who got tired of trying to keep up with all his magazine heroes. I found this particular segment to be pretty telling as far as what advertisers imply, and that it's on us if we fail to realize that X product doesn't magically make us look like the models that are representing the product.